Pompeo meets with activists targeted by Hungary’s government

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began his re-engagement trip to central Europe by meeting with civil activists who have run afoul of the government and by taking a subtle swipe at the Obama administration.

Mr. Pompeo is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Hungary in more than seven years, a point he and Hungarian officials raised repeatedly in public remarks. The Obama administration shunned Hungary in a reproach of the authoritarian leanings of populist right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

“When America’s absent, that won’t be in America’s best interest,” Mr. Pompeo said at a news conference with his Hungarian counterpart, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. “So we’ve taken a fundamentally different approach in the Trump administration. We’ve now had 14 senior-level U.S. visits to central Europe in just the first two years of this administration. I won’t tell you how many there were in the previous administration, but it starts with a Z.”

Mr. Pompeo kicked off his time in Hungary, the first stop on a five-nation European trip, with a visit to a statue of President Ronald Reagan, erected in 2011.

“It’s a sign of the relationship we have and want to have and will have,” he said.

In the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Pompeo was photographed talking with three civil rights activists in a public display of support. Their meeting was in a room where Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, a Catholic leader who was vocal in the anti-communist movement after World War II, lived after seeking refuge for 15 years after Soviet troops entered Hungary in 1956 to quash an anti-communist rebellion.

Two of the activists have been targeted during a crackdown by Mr. Orban, and a third was active in exposing cronyism within the Hungarian government. In a statement afterward, the activists said they had discussed the rule of law in Hungary, attempts to stifle freedom of the press and government smear campaigns against them.

Mr. Pompeo said the U.S. is increasing peopleto-people ties with Hungary, including exchange programs for high school students and programs for independent media outlets that have been a target of the Orban government. In an impromptu news conference, Mr. Pompeo said he would express U.S. concerns over human rights and democratic ideals when he talked privately with Hungarians.

“We have NATO partners that we wish were doing better on these issues,” he said. “We talk about it openly with them.”

He said he was sharing Washington’s concerns about the political and military ties of Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company that has a huge advertising banner draped on a building across from his hotel. He said the firm’s expanding presence in central Europe could jeopardize U.S. cooperation and investment in the region.

Mr. Pompeo heads to Bratislava, Slovakia, on Tuesday.